Presence is generally defined as knowing that a person is available via, for example, a certain device over a particular medium as soon as the user connects to the network. For instance, via presence information, it may be ascertained that the person is available online, and on a connected device with a certain device profile. Currently presence is only used to communicate the state information of a person or an entity. A user which indicates its presence on the network is termed a presentity. Presence is used to notify a group of watchers, for example in a contact list, about the state of person, including availability. When the user changes its presence state, each contact on the contact list is informed about the new presence state of the user.
The present invention is generally related to presence messaging to provide common interest community services, and more specifically to enable common interest community service via presence messaging. The invention utilizes presence to enable communities to be created based on common interest. In this case, presence infrastructure is used to carry the messaging somewhat similar to Instant Messaging (IM) or Short Message Service (SMS) only to a specific community, and is not delivered to all other entities which are watchers of the same presentity but only those which are matched to an interest state of the presence message.
Therefore, what is needed is a method of using presence messaging to enable creation of a common interest community. More specifically, assigning an interest state to a presence message and directing the presence message to at least one common interest community member.
The interest state of a presence message of the present invention enables directing the presence message to a common interest community member. The common interest community member in the present invention is at least one of a set community members from an aggregated group having similar interest states. The common interest community members are pre-determined according to criteria set in the interest state.
Current presence systems lacks an integrated approach for collecting and distributing common interest information, lack privacy and filtering mechanisms necessary for common interest information exchange and lack integration with communication systems like telephony, IM and email.
The present invention allows users with a common interest to use existing presence infrastructure to create a common interest community and facilitate their likely future communication amongst themselves. Interest based communication can be built utilizing databases which include people's interest, skills and other similar information.
Examples of such likely communications scenarios include opportunity communication among attendees of public conferences or conferences within large companies, ad-hoc communication among people who pursue common hobbies such as stamp collectors who want to exchange items of interest to community members, communication among vacation home owners who want to exchange vacation homes, holiday trip planners, hotels and flight service providers and internal recruiters to initiate communication with employees based on skill based information.
Communication between users that have common interests and are likely to communicate in the future can be facilitated by forming the common interest community. The present invention utilizes an extension of the existing Presence Information Document Format (PIDF) to account for information elements of value to the community. The basic PIDF defines the textual note, the indication of availability and a Universal Resource Identifier (URI) for communication. The Rich Presence Information Document (RPID) gives additional optional elements about the presentity and its contacts. The RPID includes information about what the person is doing, the type of place the user is in, the time zone along with the type of services that are available, and the like.
Presence communities can be created in the several ways. A third party entity may use the presence infrastructure to advertise the formation of the common interest community. For example, conference organizers can target advertisement to potential conference attendees who may need to exchange information of common interest such as topics of interest, level of expertise and daily schedule. A community member can publish his member presence information using the RPID to the presence server. Subscription to the common interest community may be passively authorized through the trusted third party for minimal default member presence information. Users will retain the privacy and filtering features of the presence infrastructure to adjust the desired presence exposure to each community member.
Peer-to-peer communication can be utilized to create a common interest community. In this case, users who form the presence community (e.g. stamp collectors who would like to exchange information and stamps) may invite potential members directly. Mechanisms such as email or presence enhanced IM can be used for this purpose. The users who choose to join the community will publish their common interest and other relevant info to the present system using the extended PIDF. In this case, access level authorization and filtering are handled by the owners of the member presence information themselves.
If the community member decides that showing his member presence information would be valuable to him, he has the ability to publish and update his RPID. If the user wishes, he can query the presence server to see what member presence information is available for distribution and the policy or policies associated with it. The user can indicate the member presence information to be made available to the common interest community. If the user decides that receiving member presence information of the common interest community member is valuable to him, he can subscribe to the common interest community to get the member presence information.
As an example, consider both a first and a second user as members of the same common interest community. The first user can send a subscription request to the presence service to view the second user's member presence information. The third party entity acts on behalf of the second user and passively authorizes viewing of minimal default member presence information. Either user can authorize the other user to see more detailed member presence information about themselves. Alternatively, if there is no third party entity, the second user can handle the authorization and filtering of his own member presence information. The presence server will provide the second user options to deny the first user's request, fully accept the request, partially accept the request along with mechanisms to select what member presence information to be made available to first user, or other related actions. If the second user grants permission directly or indirectly, his common interest community member presence information is sent as a notification to the first user who utilizes the second user's filtering and privacy policy.
The present invention allows current presence infrastructure to be leveraged for the creation of common interest presence communities. Users can have control over who is subscribed to view member presence information, and integration can be achieved with basic presence information and communication means like telephony, IM and email.
In one embodiment of the invention a method of implementing common interest community services in a presence system comprises creating a common interest community in which an interest state of a presence message is aggregated into a group in the presence system, publishing a member presence information to the common interest community to be selectively made available to a subscribing member of the common interest community and subscribing to the common interest community for receiving the member presence information, wherein a publishing member may selectively grant an access level. The method may also include assigning the interest state of the presence message to the member presence information, scanning the interest state of the member presence information, matching the interest state to the common interest community, filtering the member presence information, authorizing access to the subscribing member of the member presence information, viewing the member presence information, collecting the member presence information and distributing the member presence information.
In another embodiment of the invention a computer readable medium comprises instructions for assigning an interest state to a presence message, aggregating a group according to the interest state of the presence message and creating a common interest community of the aggregated group. The instructions may also include publishing a member presence information to the common interest community to be selectively made available to a subscribing member of the common interest community, subscribing to the common interest community to receive the member presence information, granting an access level to the subscribing member, authorizing an access level to the subscribing member of the member presence information, scanning the interest state of the member presence information, matching the interest state to the common interest community, filtering the presence message, viewing the presence message, collecting the presence message and distributing the presence message.
In a further embodiment of the invention a system for common interest community service via presence messaging, comprises a memory in which is received a presence message having an interest state and a first processor communicably coupled to the memory, the first processor adapted to assign the interest state to the presence message and send the presence message to the memory. The system may also include a second processor communicably coupled to the memory, the second processor adapted to scan the interest state of the presence message, aggregate a group according to the interest state of the presence message, create a common interest community of the aggregated group, and publish a member presence information to the common interest community. The system may further include a third processor communicably coupled to the memory, the third processor adapted to subscribe to the common interest community for receiving the member presence information, wherein a publishing member may selectively grant an access level and receive the presence message.